Exile
"Exile" is the 947th episode of Casualty and the 32nd episode of the 29th series. The whole episode takes place in Bucharest, Romania and only featured Charlie and Connie from the main characters at that time. The episode was directed by Steve Hughes and written by Kelly Jones. It was preceded by "The Department of Secrets" and was followed by "Against the Odds". Throughout the episode, the weather was shown to be snowy and cold despite the episode being aired and set in May. This is due to the fact that episodes are filmed around four or five months before they air, so it would have been filmed around the end of January during mid-winter. Synopsis Upon arriving in Bucharest, the two head to the hospital where the injured Louis is located, and they meet Alex, a local doctor. Connie performs a general checkup of Louis' injuries and accuses Alex of not giving him enough pain relief. Alex then tells Connie that Louis is now addicted to heroin, and Charlie overhears. After Louis goes missing and drives away in a car with and unidentified man, Connie and Charlie goes to Alex to ask where he could have gone. Alex tells them that Sofia used to live in an abandoned warehouse by the train station, so he may be located there. When they arrive at the warehouse, Charlie meets Razvan Ionesco inside who knows one of Louis' friends, who shows Connie and Charlie a scar on the side of his abdomen and tells them that Louis has most likely been taken for kidney harvesting outside of town. This has been orchestrated by Christian Vaduva, to whom Louis owes money for drugs. That evening, Connie goes to visit Alex at his house to tell him about what she thought they were going to do with Louis. The two get into deep conversation and Alex tells Connie how she is a good person for travelling with her friend to a completely different country. They kiss, and Connie stays the night at his house. Upon waking up, she realises Alex had already left and shortly after finds Sofia sprawled on the front door step with a dislocated shoulder from being beaten up by Christian the night before in a club when she attempted to tell Charlie what they were going to do with Louis. Connie calls Charlie to tell him where she was and Charlie drove to Alex's house. The three drive to the hospital where the operation is due to take place, as Sofia knew where is was. When they arrive, they made their way down to where the operation was being performed to find Alex as one of the doctors who was performing the operation. Charlie was so angry that Alex was operating on Louis, he pushed him which caused Alex's scalpel to slip which severed one of Louis' arteries. Connie worked with Alex in an attempt to stop the bleed, to which they did successfully. After the operation was done they stitch Louis back up with his Kidney still in tact and Connie tells Alex that he wasn't who she though he was, and walks away. Whilst Louis was recovering, Christian found out that he operation had been stopped and he started driving to the hospital. Upon learning this, Sofia tells Charlie and Connie that he is on his way, and that they need to get Louis out fast. Charlie took Louis out of the recovery room to his car just as Christian arrived, so Connie, Sofia and Alex tried to buy some time and prevent him from passing them so he can't follow Charlie. At this point, Alex tells him that it's over, and Connie informs him that Louis had already gone. Christian then leaves the hospital and goes out to his car which is parked behind Charlie's. Upon seeing Charlie, he fires shots and ends up chasing Charlie down the motorway with Louis in the back of the car lying down. After Christian attempts to knock Charlie's car off the road, Charlie bangs into his car on the side, flipping it over. Charlie looks in the mirror at the car turned over behind, and continues driving away. Production and Charlie.]] "Exile" was a one off episode, and didn't feature any scenes in the ED. Only two of the main cast members made an appearance in the episode and it was filmed entirely on location in Bucharest, Romania. The guest actors made up the majority of the overall cast and was primarily Romanian actors. Shortly after broadcast, the BBC released a behind the scenes video with interviews with Derek Thompson and Amanda Mealing on how they found filming in Bucharest. Reception Response to the episode was mixed, much alike other stand alone episodes such as "Deadfall". Many criticised the move to the new locations for the entirety of the episode, whilst others praised the creativity of the writers and crew. Primarily long running fans disliked the episodes primarily due to it no taking place in the ED, and at the fact the episode strayed from the medical drama aspect of the show. Alison Graham wrote from the Radio Times "Casualty rarely packs its passport, checks the contents of its toilet bag, and heads for the airport. But tonight for only the second time in its history (there was a 2006 two-parter set in Cambodia), it leaves Holby for 'Abroad'." Despite mixed reviews, it was much more well received than "Holby Sin City", another unique episode released around two months later which garned much more negative attention. Category:Abroad episodes